


Just Another Type of Magic

by audrey1nd



Category: The Graveyard Book - Neil Gaiman
Genre: Gen, Ghosts, Growing Up, Homecoming, Magic
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-12-20
Updated: 2015-12-20
Packaged: 2018-05-07 21:38:28
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,096
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5471627
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/audrey1nd/pseuds/audrey1nd
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Just because Bod doesn't have the Freedom of the Graveyard anymore doesn't mean that everything he learned as a child is lost to him. And he wants to share what he's learned in his time away.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Just Another Type of Magic

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Argyle](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Argyle/gifts).



> I hope you enjoy! I liked the idea that some of the skills and things that Bod did could be learned, so I went with that along with the idea of him returning.

Nobody Owens had learned a lot of things since leaving the Graveyard. He had learned what the ocean looked like and about all the creatures in it. He had learned what the desert looked like, and what mountains did as well. As instructed, he had left no path untaken. 

And now he was taking the path that he had known all of his life. The path to the Graveyard.

Bod came of his own free will, and not because he had been laid to rest there. But because it was time. Because he could. 

Bod no longer had the freedom of the Graveyard as he had as a child. But that did not mean that everything he had learned while there was lost to him. He just had to remember and relearn how to do them. 

The Jacks of All Trades had used the magic in death. Bod had learned to use the magic in life. He had learned how to use the Ways Between to travel where he pleased and to slip sideways when needed. He’d learned from Eliza that you didn’t need to be dead to use magic. He learned on his travels how to do so.

Bod had seen Silas from time to time over the years, but he was not there to see him. It had been far too long since he had seen his parents and the people who had raised him. And he had news that he wanted to share.

 

It was night as Bod approached the gate to the Graveyard. In the years he had been gone, the Graveyard had become wilder than before. Though the entry was still clear and the gate swung smoothly as he opened it, the paths through the Graveyard that he knew as a child had almost disappeared, with only a few of them still maintained. 

Bod made his way to the Owens tomb, sitting down and unpacking his bag. He knew that his parents could see and hear him, but he wanted to be able to see and hear them as well. Based on the fact that he could feel a presence, probably everyone in the Graveyard had gathered to see him. But that was just fine. He had no reason to rush, and there would be time to talk with just his parents after.

He had spent his years studying how to do this. It was not the first time he had done so, but it was the most important.

He lit the candles around himself and spread out the items he needed. He took out a pressed white flower and began to hum the tune of the Macabre softly to himself before closing his eyes and murmuring something under his breath.

When he opened his eyes, Bod saw that just as he had thought, he was surrounded by the occupants of the Graveyard. Mrs. Owens came forward to embrace Bod, but this was not the same as when he had been a child with the Freedom of the Graveyard and she could not touch him as before. 

“Nobody Owens, as nice as it is to see you, what are you doing here? You are to be out in the world, not here with us,” she scolded, though he could tell she was pleased that he had returned (and not as a ghost himself).

“Welcome back, my boy,” Josiah Worthington said in his formal voice, before Bod could respond, and the rest of the occupants echoed his greetings in a cacophony of sound that Bod had sorely missed. He had missed the Graveyard in his time away. And while he had seen the world, this would always be home to him. But it had come time for him to make a new home, so he had come to bid this one goodbye for the time being.

But first it seemed that he would get to relive his childhood once again, and be enveloped in the feelings of home that had been missing until recently.

 

Bod stayed up all night telling stories to the occupants of the Graveyard. He showed them the photos that he had taken and items he had collected and brought with him in the steamer trunk and black leather bag that Silas had given to him for his journeys. 

He showed Caius Pompeius the Roman roads throughout the world that he had walked along and the ruins spread throughout the world as well as what had come after his time. 

He had books for Fortinbras Bartleby, and many other things to share. 

 

Liza did not appear to him until everyone else had gone, just as it was turning to dawn. “Why Nobody Owens,” she said in that sly way of hers, “how you have grown.”

Bod smiled at her, still fond after all these years. It had been her who had put him on this path after all, even if it had been Silas who had literally set him on it when he left the Graveyard.

“I have. And I have news.”

“What secrets have you been hiding?” she teased, but it was clear she already knew. Bod had never been very good at hiding his feelings. “And who is it who has stolen your heart?”

“A witch very much like yourself,” Bod replied, and he swore that he could see Liza blush even though her body had long since ceased to be. 

“And does she make you happy? Is it she who taught you these things?” Liza said, face gone serious, for though she had been long dead and she had known Bod for only a short portion of all that time, he is the nicest person she has ever known.

This time it was Bod’s turn to blush. “She did and she does. Or well, not her exactly,” Bod started to explain, but Liza stopped him.

“I heard your stories, and I’m glad. Now, how come you didn’t bring her here to meet all of us? Did you think we wouldn’t approve?”

Bod laughed at that. “Oh, she’s on her way. You’ll get to meet her soon enough if you promise to be nice.”

For Bod had returned to the Graveyard to introduce his family to his future bride, though she did not know it yet. It was only fitting for her to come start their new path in the only place he had ever called home before her. He had left no path untaken, but the path of love, and he was taking the very first steps along it here, with his family all around him.


End file.
